Speakers

James Andrews, Founder/CEO of Social People

James Andrews is the Founder/CEO of Social People a strategic communications consultancy which helps companies develop digital & social strategies to build better connections with their audiences. With a team and resources in Atlanta, Los Angeles, London and Dubai their clients have included Nike, Turner Broadcasting, Lexus, Beats By Dre, The Grammy Awards, and Actress Jane Fonda.

Prior to launching Social People, Andrews was Vice President, Ketchum Digital and directed global social media brand strategies for Monster.com, FedEx, Nokia, and Wendy’s. An internationally sought after digital thought-leader, Andrews has been a keynote speaker & presenter at conferences in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Sao Paulo, London, Norway and UAE.

In one of his proudest career moments in 2009 Andrews co-created #BeatCancer an online campaign to raise awareness and micro fund raise for Cancer research. #BeatCancer garnered the 1st ever Guinness World Record for social media mentions and most importantly raised $70,000 for cancer charities in 24hrs all via Twitter. Andrews has been working in the area of interactive/new media and non-traditional marketing for 20 years and started his career as a marketing executive at legendary Columbia Records. It was during his work with several then up-and-coming Grammy-award winning performers that he honed his skills around inspiring using technology, leveraging influencers, creating content and driving awareness to niche communities which influences his work today.

James Andrews was named to the prestigious 2012 Ebony Power 100 list and blogs at Fast Company as well as Huffington Post. No stranger to being in front of the camera, Andrews can be seen as a contributor on CNN, Fox and CNBC discussing current news and social media stories. James is also known as a part-time DJ and has played for crowds at SXSW and The Grammy Awards.

Brian Bell, Chief Marketing Officer, Zuora

Prior to joining Zuora, Bell was General Manager of the Service and Portfolio Management business unit at CA Technologies. During this time, Bell led the effort to transition CA from a traditional product sales and licensing to a recurring revenue business model.

Before joining CA, Bell was VP of Solutions Marketing at BMC Software. Earlier, Bell led worldwide marketing at Remedy, where he was responsible for building a marketing organization that helped to establish Remedy as the market leading IT Service Management solution, which was acquired by BMC in 2002. His role included managing product marketing, partner marketing, and integrated marketing and communications. Bell also spent several years with Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and has held business development and product management positions at Extricity, a business-to-business integration software vendor, and Kao Corporation, a leading Japanese consumer products company.

Bell received his MBA with Distinction from INSEAD, where he was part of the team that was named The Winner of the European Business Plan of the Year. He also holds an MA with a concentration in International Economics and Japanese from John Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies and a BA from The University of Pennsylvania.

Ashish Bisaria, Senior Vice President of Customer Experience, Manheim

Ashish Bisaria acts as the “Voice of the Customer,” leading the development and execution of initiatives that enable Manheim to deliver world-class customer experiences.

Ashish brings 17 years of global customer service experience to Manheim. He most recently served as chief operating officer and executive vice president of client operations for Teleperformance, where he managed 50,000 call center agents for clients in the high-tech, telecom, financial, and insurance industries, launched “Voice of Customer” analytics and improved customer satisfaction.

Ashish began his career at KPMG Consulting in customer relationship management (CRM), business strategy and process improvement. He also held management roles in customer experience/service, strategy, and operations at U.S. Cellular and Sprint. In addition, he served as vice president of customer service operations at Cbeyond, where he led the company’s customer experience vision, strategy, and direction.

Chris Bucholtz, Editor in Chief, CRM Outsiders

With 17 years as a technology and business under his belt, Chris took over the role of editor in chief of the CRM Outsiders blog in 2011. He first focused on customer relationship management as the editor of InsideCRM, then moved to Forecasting Clouds as the founding Editor in Chief in 2009 to continue honing his views on how the discipline of CRM can impact the entire business. He tries to write from the point of view of the customer to create what he calls “advocacy journalism for CRM users.”

Before developing into a CRM influencer, Chris covered a variety of technology-related topics. He was the editor of Semiconductor Manufacturing Magazine, senior editor of technology for VAR Business, senior editor at HP World and intelligence and software editor for Telephony. After a six-year stint in the U.S. Navy, his start in journalism came as a rock columnist for BAM Magazine.

In addition to his business and technology writing, Bucholtz has written three books on World War II aviation. An avid scale modeler, Chris and his wife live in Alameda, California.

Rick Burnes, Product Marketing Director, HubSpot

Rick Burnes is director of product marketing at HubSpot, a company that builds marketing software for medium-sized businesses. In his current role, Rick leads the team bringing HubSpot’s all-in-one marketing software platform to market. Previously at HubSpot, Rick served as community manager and as blog editor, building its blog and developing free marketing software applications including www.websitegrader.com. Prior to HubSpot, Rick was co-founder of Faneuil Media, a startup that provided inbound marketing solutions for local businesses. From 2001-2004 Rick worked at NYTimes.com, where he managed the launch of new sections, including search and theater. He started at The Times two months before 9/11 and spent his first year working on the Pulitzer-Prize-winning Nation Challenged section. He has also worked at Google, The Moscow Times and The New Bedford Standard Times.

Rick is active on Twitter and occasionally posts on his personal blog (www.rickburnes.com). He resides in Boston, MA.

Anita Campbell, CEO and Publisher, Small Business Trends

A former corporate attorney and General Counsel, she went on to become the CEO of a technology subsidiary of Bell & Howell. Happily running her own business for the last decade, she founded Small Business Trends in 2003, while looking for a simple way to publish newsletter articles. The site quickly grew, and other sites focusing on the small business market were acquired along the way. Anita is widely regarded as an expert in small business issues. She is the co-author of Visual Marketing: 99 Proven Ways for Small Businesses to Market with Images and Design (Wiley 2011). Anita has served on numerous Boards, including the Board of NEOSA (the technology network of COSE, Council of Smaller Enterprises); the Center for eBusiness and Information Technology at the University of Akron College of Business; and NorTech. She has a B.A. degree from Duquesne University and a J.D. degree from the University of Akron School of Law. Read more about Anita Campbell.

Robin Carey, CEO, Social Media Today

In 2007, Robin Carey founded Social Media Today, LLC, one of the first companies to manage online B2B communities that connect large organizations with people they want to influence. A veteran of the big-book print media world that included Fortune, Newsweek and BusinessWeek, she had built her reputation on architecting powerful strategies that delivered to blue-chip corporate clients and their agencies ways to corral and connect with their customers, and equally importantly, their customers’ trusted influencers. As traditional media went digital, and the internet went social, Robin was one of the first to realize that the emerging social media platforms offered huge promise to corporations seeking to interact directly with, and learn from, their customers, their employees, and experts from the Ivy Towers, the Street and the Hill. SocialMediaToday.com was the first platform, and quickly became one of the leading communities for journalists and marketers looking to exchange information on this brave new world of social media. It was soon followed by theenergycollective.com, which has become a leading aggregator of international energy experts. Other platforms include MyVenturePad, TheSocialCustomer, SustainableCitiesCollective, TheCustomerCollective, GoverningPeople, and others. Online conversations are led by experts in their categories.

Teresa Caro, Vice President of Social Marketing, Enguage

Teresa Caro leads Social Marketing for Engauge. At Engauge, we believe social marketing is the connective tissue of marketing — the common link that creates a real-time, interactive connection between brand and consumer.

During her tenure at Razorfish, Teresa has created digital marketing, relationship marketing, and social CRM strategies across multiple industries including retail/ecommerce, finance, telecommunications, and CPG.

With almost 20 years of strategic marketing experience in the digital and traditional space, Teresa began her career on the client side and then decided to hang her own shingle. During this time, Teresa provided expertise to both B2C and B2B organizations, built ecommerce roadmaps, planned and implemented comprehensive email communication plans, optimized SEO/SEM programs, and aligned sales and marketing organizations to improve lead generation, qualification, and nurturing.

Teresa is a past-president of the Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association (AiMA), has spoken and moderated at conferences such as Ad:Tech and Loyalty 360, and provided significant input to business intelligence expert and author Guy R. Powell, to finalize his book, “Return on Marketing Investment.”. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Villanova University and an MBA from Georgia State University. Teresa lives in Atlanta with her husband and daughter.

Ginger Conlon, Editor in Chief, Direct Marketing News

As editor-in-chief of Direct Marketing News, Ginger Conlon is responsible for its editorial direction and day-to-day editorial operations. Additionally, she is a member of the board of directors of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA). She was selected as one of the “Top 25 CRM Influencers You Should Be Following” by Zoho.

David Cummings, Cofounder of Pardot

David has been an entrepreneur for over a decade. In early 2001, David founded Hannon Hill, which was recognized as the 247th fastest growing company in the U.S. by Inc. magazine as part of the Inc. 500 awards. In early 2007, David co-founded Pardot, which was recognized by the Atlanta Business Chronicle as the fastest growing technology company in 2010. Pardot was named to the Inc. 500 in 2012 coming in at number 172. Pardot was acquired by ExactTarget in 2012. David also co-founded Clickscape real estate technology (clickscape.com), Rigor web performance management (rigor.com), and SalesLoft sales intelligence (salesloft.com).

David serves on the board of the Atlanta chapter of the Entrepreneur’s Organization and on the board of Venture Atlanta. A native of Tallahassee, Florida, David earned a bachelor of science degree in economics from Duke University and studied at the London School of Economics. David blogs at DavidCummings.org, tweets at (@davidcummings), and is author of the book Startup Upstart and co-author of the book Think Outside the Inbox, both available on Amazon.com.

Bert DuMars, Principal Analyst Serving CMOs at Forrester Research

Bert is a member of Forrester’s CMO Advisory Team. He’s focused on delivering research, strategy and guidance to CMOs and senior marketing executives in the areas of digital, social media and mobile marketing, and ecommerce. Also will be investigating best in class CMO organizational models and talent acquisition programs.

Previously Bert was Vice President Digital Marketing and Ecommerce for Newell Rubbermaid (NYSE: NWL) a global marketer of consumer and commercial products. He was responsible for leading and guiding Digital Marketing, Ecommerce, Mobile Marketing and Social Media Marketing initiatives for Newell Rubbermaid’s externally-facing online efforts.

Donna Ennis is the project director for the MBDA Business Center – Atlanta located at Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation. Funded by the Department of Commerce’s Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), the MBDA Business Center’s mission is to grow and strengthen Minority Business Enterprises (MBEs).

Donna is responsible for the strategic direction, marketing, outreach, and operations for the Center. She also provides assistance to Center clients in strategic, business and market planning; private and public procurement, finance, operations and business process improvement. Under Donna’s leadership, the Center has assisted MBEs in generating over $400 million in contracts, financing, and sales and creating more than 3,200 jobs.

Dax Farhang, Director of Product Management, SugarCRM

Dax is Director of Product Management for SugarCRM, Inc. He has 15 over years experience in software as both a business leader and software developer. In that time, Dax has focused on key areas such as CRM, softwaredevelopment tools, knowledge management, and enterprise social computing. Prior to SugarCRM, Dax was Director of Product Management for Electric Cloud and a Sr. Product Manager at BEA and Plumtree prior to that. Dax also held the role of CTO and VP of Engineering at Numetrix and Realm Technologies. In the early part of his career, Dax worked as a software developer creating IT applications that supported the sales and engineering organizations for companies such as Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks, and Juniper Networks. Dax holds a BS degree in Decision and Information Sciences from Santa Clara University.

Jon Ferrara, Founder of Nimble

Jon Ferrara, has been recognized for pioneering innovation in the customer management category. Prior to founding Nimble, LLC. Ferrara was the creator and co-founder of the award winning customer management product GoldMine. In 1999, Goldmine got acquired by FrontRange and Ferrara left to pursue other interests. During those years, Ferrara continued to watch the CRM market. He saw that most of the CRM products that were serving small businesses moved up market (and became more costly and complex) or fell by the way side, leaving the market underserved. It was at this point that he decided to create the next generation CRM product for small businesses, Nimble.

Tricia Gellman, Senior Director, Product Marketing at Salesforce.com

Tricia Gellman is the Senior Director of Product Marketing for Salesforce.com, where she is responsible for defining the positioning and messaging for the Data.com brand. Since joining salesforce.com in 2009, Gellman has been a frequent speaker at global Cloudforce events, led the marketing efforts for the launch of Data.com, fostered relationships with key partners like Dun and Bradstreet (D&B) and led product marketing activities resulting in new customer acquisition and revenue growth.

Before joining salesforce.com, Tricia was the VP of Marketing for liveBooks a San Francisco-based startup delivering cloud solutions for creative professionals. Prior to that, she spent 9 years at Adobe Systems where she served as Director of Product Marketing for the Adobe Creative Suite and headed product marketing for the acquisition of Macromedia. She also spent time at Apple as well as a graphic designer in Washington DC.

Paul Greenberg, President of The 56 Group & Author of CRM at the Speed of Light

In addition to being the author of the best-selling CRM at the Speed of Light, now in 4 editions and 9 languages, Paul Greenberg is President of The 56 Group, LLC, a consulting firm, focused on CRM and Social CRM strategic services. He is a founding partner of BPT Partners, a training and consulting venture composed of a number of CRM luminaries. His book, CRM at the Speed of Light: Social CRM Strategy, Tools, and Techniques for Engaging Your Customers, now in its fourth edition, is in 9 languages and been called “the bible of the CRM industry”. It has been used by more than 70 universities as a primary text. Paul is the Executive Vice President of the CRM Association. He currently is the Chairman of the Board of Advisors of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management CRM Centre of Excellence. He has been a Board of Advisors member of the Baylor University MBA Program for CRM majors, and the co-chairman of Rutgers University’s CRM Research Center.

In 2011, Mr. Hall was one of the Gartner & 1to1 CRM Excellence Awards judges for Enterprise Efficiency; he was recognized as a 2007 Customer Champion from 1to1 Magazine; awarded the most valuable thought leadership award by Frost & Sullivan; and named to the executive advisory boards of Frost & Sullivan and National Conference on Operations and Fulfillment.

As President of the Customer Relationship Management Association (CRMA), Atlanta Chapter, Mr. Hall works with the National CRMA and the greater CRM community to develop standards and best practices for CRM and Social CRM.

Rob Houser is a Senior Director of Product Management, Sage

Rob Houser is a Senior Director of Product Management at Sage, where he is responsible for the Sage Advisor program. Sage Advisor leverages customer intelligence to deliver a more personalized user experience, helping users to work more productively and solve problems more quickly while using Sage products. Rob’s career has spanned several user-centered disciplines: product management, usability, design, documentation, and training. Over the past 20 years, Rob has worked in each of these areas, studying users and translating user needs into more usable products. He is especially interested in analyzing big data to provide meaningful insights into how users really interact with Sage products and services (as well as Sage as a company) so that Sage can deliver an extraordinary customer experience.

Esteban Kolsky, Founder of ThinkJar

Esteban Kolsky has over 20 years experience in customer strategy and CRM solutions. Prior to founding consultancy ThinkJar, Esteban spent eight years as a Gartner analyst. He is a popular industry speaker who has presented in more than 15 countries, and has engaged in literally thousands of customer conversations that give him a solid perspective to align research with real world position. Esteban was named by CRM Magazine as an Influential Leader for 2011.

Brent Leary, Partner, CRM Essentials

Brent Leary is a crm industry analyst, advisor, author, speaker and award winning blogger. He is co-founder and Partner of CRM Essentials LLC, an Atlanta based CRM advisory firm covering tools and strategies for improving business relationships. In 2009 he co-authored Barack 2.0: Social Media Lessons for Small Business. Recognized by InsideCRM as one of the 25 most influential industry leaders, Leary also is a past recipient of CRM Magazine’s Most Influential Leader Award. He serves on the national board of the CRM Association, on the advisory board of the University of Toronto’s CRM Center of Excellence, and on the editorial advisory board for The Atlanta Tribune. Leary writes regularly for Inc.com and MyCustomer.com, and serves as Blogger-in-Residence for TheSocialCustomer.com. He hosts the “One on One” conversation series at SmallBizTrends.com, and teams up with Paul Greenberg on the CRM Playaz show.

T.A. McCann, Vice President of Product Strategy, BlackBerry

T. A. is currently a VP of Product Strategy at BlackBerry, focused on BBM (Blackberry Messenger), Blackberry social applications (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter…) as well as the native Contacts apps.

He was the founder of Gist.com (sold to BlackBerry in February 2011) as well as Jump2Go and 3 other web based companies. He is an active advisor to startup companies in Seattle including Creative Live, Venpop (sold to Lockerz), Zooppa, Thinkfuse (sold to Salesforce, Aug 2012), EveryMove and RivalIQ. McCann is an active angel investor via Founders Co-op and SKV. He also spent 4 years at Microsoft in various roles on Exchange and Mobile Service Delivery Platforms.

McCann likes sharing his experience and ideas, and spends lots of time at Founders Institute, Startup Weekend (on the board) and Techstars (active mentor) as well as Lake Washington Girls Middle School (on the board).

Judy Mod, Principal of Social Gastronomy, Founder of the Social Executive Council

Judy Mod, Principal of Social Gastronomy, is an executive who is helping organizations transform from solution-centric to buyer-centric in their approach to their markets, their customers, and the operationalization within their companies. Her specialties include Collaborative Buying, Buyer-Centric Marketing, Behavioral Target Marketing, Network Selling, and Customer Adoption. Judy co-founded and is the president of the Social Executive Council, the premiere global group of senior executives who are collaborating on becoming cross-functional, enterprise-wide buyer-centric organizations. Judy’s career spans over 28 years in B2B delivering top line revenue in a diversity of industries (chemical/petrochemical/O&G, process/manufacturing, environmental, microelectronics, high technology) and in various roles (global sales, business development, marketing, strategic alliances/channels/partnerships, consulting). A recognized early adopter of innovation, she has the ability to merge the needs of organizations with the innovative solutions in the marketplace. Judy is regular speaker and blogger on social market leadership, buyer-centric organizations and the social enterprise.

Adam Naide, Executive Director of Marketing for Social Media at Cox Communications

Adam Naide is Executive Director of Marketing for Social Media at Cox Communications, where he leads overall strategy and execution for all of the company’s social media activities. Today, over 275,000 Cox customers and fans can engage with content, campaigns, and get customer support on Facebook, Twitter and You Tube, (coming soon: Google Plus).

Prior to joining Cox, Naide served as senior director of audience experience at CNN Worldwide. In this role, Naide led network efforts to build engaged fan bases for CNN/HLN shows and talent on social media platforms. His efforts helped create two-way conversations with consumers, driving viewership for CNN/HLN TV, and growing the networks’ social media audience to millions of fans/followers.

Jeff Nolan, VP of Product Marketing, Get Satisfaction

Jeff is our VP of Product Marketing and is responsible for our product positioning and the promotional strategies to bring our platform to market. Jeff’s experience as a venture capitalist, professional whistler, and an operational executive in a variety of roles is invaluable to Get Satisfaction as we grow and optimize our business.

Denis Pombriant, Managing Principal of Beagle Research

Denis Pombriant is a well-known front office analyst and thought leader. He is the founder and managing principal of Beagle Research Group, LLC and the Bullpen Group, LLC working with Paul Greenberg, Esteban Kolsky and Brent Leary on major research projects. Pombriant’s work appears in most major CRM publications both in print and online, in both North America and Europe. His new research on social media adoption and benefits with Esteban Kolsky was published in August 2012. His new book, “The Subscription Economy — How Subscriptions Improve Business” is available on Amazon. Pombriant is always working on a book and he maintains an active research, writing and speaking calendar. He lives and works near Boston.

Kyle Porter, Founder of SalesLoft.com

Kyle is the CEO and co-founder of SalesLoft. He’s been an entrepreneur and sales professional for over a decade. Kyle founded Sports Bar Digital, a gaming and digital advertising business and later became the Vice President of Marketing for NanoLumens. There he built the sales and marketing organization while the company raised over $12mm in investment capital. In late 2011, Kyle co-founded SalesLoft, alongside David Cummings, which was recognized by the Technology Association of Georgia as one of the Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in 2012. During the summer of 2012, SalesLoft joined TechStars – one of the top technology accelerators in the country.

Kyle is an involved member of the ATDC and has been an active volunteer at High Tech Ministries. He’s also the co-founder of B2BCamp, a non-profit teaching technology and process to B2B sales & marketing professionals. A native of Georgia, Kyle earned a bachelors degree from Georgia Institute of Technology. He blogs at salesloft.com/blog, and tweets at (@kylegport).

Ramon Ray, Publisher of SmallBizTechnology.com

Ramon is editor & technology evangelist of Smallbiztechnology.com and Regional Development Director NY/NJ Infusionsoft . He is passionate about helping small businesses grow their businesses using technology as a strategic asset.

He is a journalist, free lance writer, event producer (Small Business Summit, Small Business Technology Tour, Small Business Influencer Awards), speaker and author. His third book is “Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing”, (Wiley, Winter 2013).

As a journalist and writer, Ramon has written thousands of articles (product reviews, interviews and more) about technology for small businesses. His work appears in Smallbiztechnology and also in Allbusiness.com, Entrepreneur, Inc. OPEN Forum and Black Enterprise amongst many other publications.

Nate Skinner is the Vice President for Enterprise Marketing and Strategy at salesforce, the world’s most innovative company in 2011 and 2012 according to Forbes. Nate is responsible for delivering programs, strategy, and messaging to ensure salesforce is positioned as a strategic partner for the worlds largest companies. Prior to running enterprise marketing for salesforce, Nate ran the competitive intelligence team, focusing on differentiating the salesforce brand from it’s competitors, both internally and externally. Since 1999 Nate has held a variety of roles for Borland Software (acquired by MicroFocus), Embarcadero Technologies, and Rally Software.

Michael Thomas, Customer Success Manager, Microsoft

Michael is a well-established authority on CRM and Social CRM strategies and best practices. He has more than 20+ years of IT Solution Consulting experience working for companies like ADP, Oracle, PeopleSoft, CRM Essentials and Neighborhood America (now INgage Networks). Michael served as the National President and National Board member of the CRM Association,and as a 2005-2008 Peppers and Rogers Group 1to1 Impact Awards Judge, and as a guest lecture on the subject of Social CRM at the prestigious Wharton School of Business. He is a past recipient of CRM Magazine’s Most Influential CRM Leaders Award, andwas named one of the Rockstars of Social CRM by the Social Media Listening Platform vendor Radian6.

Heidi Tucker, Vice President of Alliances and Business Development

Heidi Tucker is responsible for driving the company’s distribution and OEM partnerships through CRM, sales automation, and social media brands. She also oversees InsideView channel sales and strategic alliances.

Heidi’s career spans more than 20 years leading marketing, sales, and business development. Prior to joining InsideView, Heidi was Vice President of Business Development at Hoover’s (a D&B Company), where she led Hoover’s API content licensing, mobile product distribution, and built the company’s first channel sales organization to expand distribution through major CRM brand owners and their partner eco-systems.

Heidi is passionate about women’s leadership issues and the arts. She is president of the board of International Ballet Theatre and a member of the Board of Directors of Girl Scouts of Western Washington. She lives in the Seattle area with her husband and two teenage children.

Adam Wexler, Founder and Chief Evangelist Officer at Insightpool

Adam Wexler is the Founder and Chief Evangelist Officer at Insightpool, a social marketing automation software. Insightpool was spawned from the creative social media marketing tactics Wexler employed on his prior startup, GoRankem, where they sought to reach a wide audience on a non-existent marketing budget (outside of being the first successful startup to successfully raise money via Kickstarter’s crowdfunding platform).

Wexler has been invited to speak in front of thousands of students and event attendees about social media and entrepreneurship. Of note, Adam has a wide variety of experience such as participating in Technology Association of Georgia’s (TAG) ‘Wild West of Social Media,’ acting as the ‘Social Analyst’ for the 2011 NCAA Final Four Concert Series and playing the voice behind Cracker’s 2012 summer tour.

Wexler graduated from The University of Georgia with a focus in Leadership studies.